Sociology Study Guide 3

Jean Piaget’s use of the term “operational” is most aligned with the concept of

Socialization

the process by which people learn the characteristics of their group — the knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, norms, and actions thought appropriate for them

Feral Children

Children assumed to have been
*raised by animals in the wilderness,
*isolated from humans.
*Unable to speak
* Walk on all fours

Self

the unique human capacity of being able to see ourselves “from the outside” ; the views we internalize of how others see us.

Personality

the sum total of behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, and values that are characteristics of an individual

Elements of a personality- Sigmund Fraud

First is the id (Fraud’s term) for inborn drive to seek self gratification, Second is ego the balancing force between the id and the demands of society, third superego more commonly known as conscience.

Elements of a personality- Notes

Cognitive, Emotional, Behavioral

Looking-glass self

a term coined by Charles Horton Cooley to refer to the process by which our self develops through internalizing others’ reactions to us.

The theory of self development according to the looking glass self

The theory of self development according to the looking glass self

Charles Horton Cooley

Developed theory of looking glass self, imagination, interpretation

George Herbert Mead

developed theory of role taking/ three stages of self development imitate others, play stage, game stage

Role taking- Notes(Imagination, Play, Game)

taking on or pretending to take on the role of others. we learn to see ourselves through the eyes of others.

Significant Other

An individual who significantly influences someone else.

Taking the role of the other

Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.

Agents of socialization

peers/school/family/work/neighborhood/religion/technology

Generalized Other

The norms, values, attitudes, and expectations of people “in general” ; the child’s ability to take the role of the generalized other is a significant step in the development of a self.

Mead’s Three Stages of taking roles of others

1. Imitation
2. Play
3.Team games

Imitation

Under age three we can only mimic others.

Play

We pretend to take the roles of specific people.

Team Games

the significance for the self is that to play games we must be able to take multiple roles.

Jean Piaget

A Swiss psychologist that studied the development of children’s reasoning.

The sensorimotor stage

Stage of a child (from birth to age 2) in which our understanding is limited to direct contact (sucking, touching, listening, and etc)

The preoperational stage

Stage of a child (from age 2-7) in which understanding that we developed the ability to use symbols (but we don’t understand common concepts such as size, speed, or causation).

The Concrete Operational Stage

Stage of a child (from age 7-12)..they can now understand numbers, size, causation, and speed, and we are able to take the role of the others.

The Formal Operational Stage

Stage of person (after age 12). Now capable of abstract thinking.

Id

Freud’s term for our inborn basic drives

Ego

Freud’s term for a balancing force between the id and the demands of society.

Superego

Freud’s term for the conscience; the internalized norms and values of our social groups.

Gender

The behaviors and attitudes that a society considers proper for its males and females; masculinity or femininity

Gender Socialization

learning society’s “gender map” the paths in life set out for us because we are male or female.

Peer Group

a group of individuals, often of roughly the same age, who are linked by common interests and orientations

Mass Media

forms of communication, such as radio, newspapers, and television that are directed to mass audiences.

Agents Of Socialization

People or groups that affect our self-concept, attitudes, behaviors, or other orientations toward life.

Anticipatory Socialization

The process of learning in advance an anticipated future role or status.

Resocialization

The process of learning new norms, values, attitudes and behaviors.

socialization

Total Institution

A place that is almost totally controlled by those who run it, in which people are cut off from the rest of society and the society is mostly cut of from them.

nature versus nurture

Degradation Ceremony

A term coined by Harold Garfinkel to refer to a ritual whose goal is to remake someone’s self by stripping away that individuals self-identity and stamping a new identity in its place.

Life Course

the stages if our life as we go from birth to death

Transitional Adulthood

A term that refers to a period following high school when young adults have not yet taken on the responsibilities ordinarily associated with adulthood; also called adolescence.

Transitional Older Years

an emerging stage of the life course between retirement and when people are considered old; approximately age 65 to 75

Social *PSYCHOLOGICAL* Theories of Human Development

1. Freud’s psychoanalytic perspective- children first develop the id (drives and needs), then the ego (restrictions on the id), and then superego (moral and ethical aspects of personality)
2. Piaget’s cognitive development- children go through four stages of cognitive (intellectual) development, going from understanding only through sensory contact to engaging in highly abstract thought
3. Kohlberg’s stages of moral development- people go through three stages of moral development, from avoidance of unwanted consequences to viewing morality based on human rights
4. Gilligan: gender and moral development- women go through stages of moral development from personal wants to the greatest good for themselves and others

Sociological Theories of Human Development

*PAY ATTENTION: to weather the question ask for *(Social *Psychological* Theories*)
or just
**(Sociological Theories)

1. Cooley’s looking-glass self- a person;s sense of self is derived from his or her perception of how others view him or her
2. Mead’s three stages of self-development- preparatory stage (children imitate others around them); play stage (children role play specific people); game stage (children learn the demand and expectations of roles)

Theory of Personality (Freud’s)

according to Freud, human development occur in three states that reflect different levels of personality
*id- immediate gratification CONSCIOUS
*ego- reality oriented imposes restrictions on pleasure seeking UNCONSCIOUS
*superego- conscience, moral and ethical aspects of personality UNCONSCIOUS

Sigmund Freud

*known as the founder of psychoanalytic theory
*developed his major theories in the Victorian era, when biological explanations of human behavior were prevalent
*during this era, extreme sexual repression and male dominance greatly influenced his theory and explanations
*believed that people have two basic tendencies: the urge to survive and the urge to procreate
*considered biological drives to be the primary source of human activity.
*activated by the pleasure principle to demand immediate and complete gratification of biological needs

1. Deviance can be seen as functional for a society for all of the following reasons EXCEPT?

it promotes the development of out-groups

2. According to Robert Merton’s structural strain theory, stock brokers who bend the rules to achieve financial success for their clients are demonstrating a combination of adaption strategies, namely?

conformity and innovation

3. Female and male are to sex what feminine and masculine are to ______?

gender

4. The emergence of adolescence as a distinct stage in the life course is a product of all of the following EXCEPT?

biology

5. Maria Elena is a professor of astrophysics. She is also a spouse and parent. Taken together these statuses are called a(n) _____?

status set

6. Sociology is different from other social science in that it ________?

looks at several dimensions of observable social life to form behavioral explanations

Robert Merton

clarified the difference between manifest functions and latent functions

7. As noted in your text, deviance changes existing social norms according to ______?

how society interprets boundary violations

8. Conflict theory emphasizes the key concepts of ______?

inequality, power, competition

9. Social structure, the framework for social behavior, is recognizable by ____?

patterned behaviors

10. The concept of medicalization refers to the ____?

redefinition of non-medical problems as medical problems

11. The life course is influenced by _____?

social location, historical time, and biology

12. In a traditional Caste system, one’s status and position in which the social hierarchy is determined by _____?

the parents’ caste

13. In general, _________defines which acts are deviant in a society?

those with the power to enforce their definitions

generalized other

common behavioral expectations of general society
(As a whole)

Global EMotions

Anger, Distrust, Fear, Happiness, Sadness, and Surprise

Degradation ceremony:

an attempt to remake the self by stripping away the individual’s current identity and stamping a new one in its place.

14. A person’s or organization’s ability or capacity to make others accept their authority is called _______?

power

In psychoanalytic theory, the “culture within us” is represented by the ________

15. The central assumption of functionalism is that ________?

society is a whole composed of interrelated parts

16. Without language there can be no__________

culture—no shared way of life—and culture is the key to what people become.

Without contact with others, prisoners in solitary confinement experienced a wide variety of negative psychological and physical symptoms; e.g. hallucinations and some suicide

Spitz Orphanage Study

Lack of social contact affected emotional health, physical health, and sometime the mortality of babies

Charles Horton Cooley (1)

“Looking glass” self; We know ourselves through the looking glass of others that mirrors back to us impressions we create;

Charles Horton Cooley (2)

looking for approval is a motivational, fundamental human instinct; Positive approval contributes to our sense of self and social belonging.

Christena Nippert-Eng

Researched contents of wallets and purses, found publicly shared and privately kept items; This suggests we think differently about what aspects of our identities we are willing to show and exactly how

Harold Garfinkel

Invented ethnomethodology; Concluded humans have specific methods for interacting with others; Suggested same methods are used regardless of country, culture of historical moment

ethnomethodology

Harold Garfinkel’s term for the study of the way people make sense of their everyday surroundings

How we make sense of our world

Methods of context; conversation principles; impressions; emotions; applause; digital age self; and interaction in public

context

Conditions, including facts, social/historical background, time and place, etc., surrounding a given situation

social context

The combination of people, the activities and interactions among people, the setting in which behavior occurs, and the expectations and social norms governing behavior in that setting

Master method of context

People persistently and intensively take context into account; meaning is constructed by drawing on social context

Individuals close enough to us to have a strong capacity to motivate our behavior-more than spouse or lover

Reference groups (1)

Consist of others whose social positions and preferences make them especially relevant to our sense of worth

Reference groups (2)

Often share commonalities of age, tastes, status, and interests

Online social networking sites

Often involve members with overlapping reference group memberships; Cluster around commonalities of age, taste, or status; Contain stars with disproportionate influence

“Stars” in our groups

may be role models who have disproportionate influence as we imitate how they move, dress, and carry out life.

McPherson

found that social networking relationships to outsiders tend to be few in number and dissolve more quickly than those in groups have multiple links into our own social circles and interests.

Generalized other

Common-sense understandings of what is appropriate; Expectations of how to behave; Understanding of expectations and norms of our groups and various roles we transition into over the life course

Generalized other: Culture

Substance or systems of belief and knowledge of taken-for-granted world that together have socialize us; Not always boundary-bound due to immigration and shifting borders

Generalized other: Subculture

Sets of individuals who share common preferences or understandings of specific aspects of the social world but remain part of a larger group that is tied together on a more basic level

Challenges we face as we move from one social context to another

Status and role change; Labeling; Rule use; and conformity (experiments)

Status (1)

Distinct social categories are associated with a set of

expected behaviors and roles

for individuals to assume;

Status (2)

Different life statuses evolve with change in age and life situations; Each status change brings different type of groups, expectations, and rule sets

Role sets

Specific expectations are attached to each role; expected behaviors of a certain role

Role conflict

occurs when fulfilling expectations of one role conflicts with meeting expectations of another; Severe can create stress; So-called rule breakers are not nonconformists, but conformists to other groups

nonconformists

a person who refuses to follow accepted rules or customs

Labeling Theory

Theory that society creates deviance by identifying particular members as deviant

Labeling theory example

Label “deviant” surfaces when there is a person or group that can serve as an object of the label “deviant” and An individual or institution that can put the label on and make it stick

Social construction of reality

the interactive process by which knowledge is produced and codified, making it specific to a certain group or society.

Goal of Labeling

the goal is to understand the larger interaction systems that create such classifications, keep them alive, or causes them to erode.

Consequence of Labeling

One consequence of being labeled is that the individuals so identified change their conduct and embrace the behavior that led them into the deviant category in the first place

Robert Merton

States that when disapproved behavior is supported or even valued, is called a self-fulfilling prophecy; Something becomes true because people say it is true.

rules that have not been clearly articulated but are nonetheless understood

conformity

The tendency of individuals to change their attitudes, opinions, and behaviors to align with the group

Asch’s classic three line experiment

Demonstrated influence of social context; experimented how people would rather conform than state their own individual answer even though they know the group’s answer is wrong

Milgram

Induced subjects to deliver what they thought were painful, even fatal, electrical shocks to a stranger who had given the wrong answer

Zimbardo’s Standford prison study

Volunteer students acted as guards in mock prisons; Some guards became intensely sadistic and prisoners became radically dependent on their guards’ attitude toward them

CHAPTER OBJECTIVE REVIEW

[OBJ 3.1] Explain how feral, isolated, and institutionalized children help us understand that “society makes us human.”

How much of our human characteristics come from
“nature” (heredity) and how much from “nurture”
(the social environment)?
* Observations of isolated, institutionalized, and feral
children help to answer the nature-nurture question,
as do experiments with monkeys that were raised in
isolation.
* Language and intimate social interaction—
aspects of “nurture”—are essential to the development
of what we consider to be human characteristics.
Pp. 66-71.

3.2 Use the ideas and research of Cooley (looking-glass self), Mead (role taking), and Piaget (reasoning) to explain socialization into the self and mind.

Part 1) How do we acquire a self?
* Humans are born with the capacity to develop a self, but the self must be socially constructed; that is, its contents depend on social interaction.
* According to Charles Horton Cooley’s concept of the looking-glass self, our self develops as we internalize
others’ reactions to us.
*George Herbert Mead identified
the ability to take the role of the other as essential to
the development of the self. Mead concluded that even the mind is a social product. Pp. 71-72.

Part 2) How do children develop reasoning skills?
* Jean Piaget identified four stages that children go through as they develop the ability to reason:
(1) sensorimotor, =in which understanding is limited to sensory stimuli such as touch and sight;
(2) preoperational,= the ability to use symbols;
(3) concrete operational,= in which reasoning ability is more complex but not yet capable of complex abstractions; and
(4) formal operational,= or abstract thinking. Pp. 72-74.

3.3 Explain how the development of personality and morality and socialization into emotions are part of how “society makes us human.”

PART 1) How do sociologists evaluate Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of personality development?
* Sigmund Freud viewed personality development as the result of our id (inborn, self-centered desires) clashing with the demands of society.
* The ego develops to balance the id and the
superego, the conscience.
* Sociologists, in contrast, do not examine inborn or subconscious motivations but, instead, consider how social factors—social class, gender, religion, education, and so forth—underlie personality. Pp. 74-75.

PART 2) How do people develop morality?
* That even babies exhibit a sense of morality seems to indicate that a basic morality could be inborn. Lawrence Kohlberg identified four stages children go through as they learn morality: amoral, preconventional, conventional, and postconventional.
* As they make moral decisions, both men and
women use personal relationships and abstract principles.
* The answer to “What is moral?” differs from society to
society. Pp. 75-76.

PART 3) How does socialization influence emotions?
* Socialization influences not only how we express our emotions but also what emotions we feel.
* Socialization into emotions is one of the means by which society produces conformity. Pp. 76-78.

3.4) Discuss how gender messages from the family, peers, and the mass media teach us society’s gender map.

How does gender socialization affect our
sense of self?
* Gender socialization—sorting males and females into different
* roles—is a primary way that groups control human behavior. Children receive messages about gender even in
* infancy. A society’s ideals of sex-linked behaviors are reinforced by its social institutions. Pp. 78-83.

3.5). Explain why the family, the neighborhood, religion, day care, school, peer groups, and the workplace are called agents of socialization?

What are the main agents of socialization?
* The agents of socialization include the family, neighborhood, religion, day care, school, peer groups, the mass media, and the workplace.
* Each has its particular influences in socializing us into becoming full-fledged members of society.
Pp. 83-88.

3.6 Explain what total institutions are and how they resocialize people.

What is resocialization?
* Resocialization is the process of learning new norms, values, attitudes, and behavior.
* Most resocialization is voluntary, but some, as with the resocialization of residents of total institutions, is involuntary. Pp. 88-89.

3.7 Identify major divisions of the life course and discuss the sociological significance of the life course.

PART 1) Does socialization end when we enter
adulthood?
* Socialization occurs throughout the life course.
* In industrialized societies, the life course can be divided into childhood, adolescence, young adulthood,
the middle years, and the older years.
* The West is adding two new stages, transitional adulthood and transitional older years.
* Using the sociological perspective, we can see how both the streams of history and social location—geography, gender, race-ethnicity,
social class—influence the life course. Pp. 90-93.

PART 2) Are We Prisoners of Socialization?
* Although socialization is powerful, we are not merely the sum of our socialization experiences.
* Just as socialization influences our behavior, so we act on our environment and influence even our self-concept. Pp. 93-94.